Arts groups bemoan the state of parking in downtown Harrisburg

You’re stuck in traffic on the exit ramp that spirals through the heart of Harrisburg’s Walnut Street parking garage. And the clock is ticking.

You and your spouse already have paid more than $100 for dinner on Restaurant Row and a show at Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, a night of entertainment that has taken you perilously close to five hours spent downtown.

View full sizeMARK PYNES, The Patriot-NewsThe Walnut Street parking garage changed their rates from what use to be a flat $5, to as much as $16 for the same time period.

That matters, because that’s when the parking charge at the garage abruptly rises $7 — from $9 to $16. The old $5 flat fee that used to apply after 5 p.m. is just a memory now.

Which is why you are muttering bad words under your breath when you finally inch your way to the exit gate and find that you owe the higher amount. You pay, but decide it might be a while before you come downtown again.

“People do get upset when the cost goes to $16 while they are waiting in line to get out,” said Samuel Kuba, executive director for Theatre Harrisburg, which stages musicals at Whitaker. “If dinner and a show is going to take them past five hours, they may opt to have dinner elsewhere.”

Or, they might skip the trip downtown altogether.

Performance groups, restaurant owners and officials at Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts are all bemoaning the loss of the former “5 after 5” offer at the Walnut Street garage. At least one theater operator is looking to leave the city for greener suburban pastures.

The Harrisburg Parking Authority does still offer some deals. Parking at the Market Square Garage will be $5 a day during the annual Kipona Festival over Labor Day weekend, and there’s still a $5 after 5 p.m. deal at the automated River Street garage. Parking at City Island also is $5 a day.

But since early this year, parkers at the authority’s most convenient garage — with internal links to Whitaker, Hilton Harrisburg and Strawberry Square — pay full price all the time. Some nearby garages, including Locust Street and State Street, only allow night parking to customers who rent spaces by the month.

Rates at most garages, including Walnut Street, range from $5 for two hours or less to $16 for stays of more than five hours, including that $7 jump at the five-hour mark. Monthly rates also increased, from $155 to $200.

The city also looked at increasing meter rates and hours for surface street parking, but has backed off that plan, at least for now.

“Harrisburg has always tried to be fair,” said Nancy Keim, assistant executive director at Harrisburg Parking Authority, which sets rates and operates nine parking garages and 1,200 metered parking spaces in the city. “But there is too much going on all the time at Walnut [Street Garage] to offer that [flat rate]. Whitaker did give a discount to customers, but they didn’t want to pay anymore.”

Michael Hanes, CEO and president at Whitaker, has a different view of what happened.

“We had a gentleman’s agreement for many years with the parking authority,” Hanes said. “We collected the money and stamped the ticket. It was a nice convenience for our guests.”

That changed earlier this year, he said.

“We got a letter from the authority, saying that [rate] was no longer available,” Hanes said. “If we would want to pay for the difference, they were willing to do that. But the reality is, we don’t have the resources to subsidize parking.”

View full sizeMARK PYNES, The Patriot-NewsParking rates at the Walnut Street garage.

In a letter dated Nov. 11, 2011, the authority notified Whitaker officials that the parking discount was going away.

“I wanted to remind you that effective January 1, 2012, the 10 percent discount on the patron and employee parking validations will no longer be given,” stated the letter, which was signed by Keim.

Whitaker, a downtown cultural arts center that opened in September 1999, is continuing to validate parking for its volunteers, Hanes said.

“We didn’t want our volunteers to have to accept that burden,” he said.

But the center’s regular patrons, which can number more than 100,000 annually for live performances and Imax films, are on the hook for full rates at Walnut Street.

Given existing concerns about the city’s $330 million debt and a rise in violent crime, performing arts groups and others fear that parking fees could be the tipping point that causes people to avoid Harrisburg in favor of restaurants and entertainment venues in the suburbs, where parking is plentiful — and free.

“People don’t have to come downtown,” said Jackie Goodwin, a Theatre Harrisburg board member who owns a downtown business, Capital Communications. “The city should be finding ways to make the city easier to visit, not harder and more expensive.”

The pending lease of the city-owned parking garages to a private operator also is clouding the picture, as is the potential that the city could file for bankruptcy.

Last year, Moody’s Investors Services downgraded its rating of the parking authority’s bond debt to a higher risk level, citing the city’s ongoing fiscal crisis and uncertainties surrounding the state-sponsored fiscal recovery plan “that could ultimately result in a [bankruptcy] filing.”

The city’s parking issues have bugged Nicholson so much that he is looking for a new home.

“If they could fix the parking, I probably would stay,” he said.

But he doesn’t believe it will happen, which is why Gamut, which has been offering children’s shows and classic dramas in downtown Harrisburg for more than 20 years, has made an offer on a former gymnasium in Lemoyne, where the nonprofit theater organization can own its building and provide ample parking for customers.

With that move, Gamut could provide actors with housing in a next-door apartment building that is part of the deal.

“This is what happens when you are trying to make money anyway you can,” Nicholson said of the city’s financial crisis. “They are almost cutting off their nose to spite their face. They are reinforcing the idea of making Harrisburg almost entirely a commuter town.”

Nicholson also bristles at suggestions he’s “abandoning” Harrisburg.

“I hear that, but if we die because we didn’t leave Harrisburg, then we would still be abandoning Harrisburg because we wouldn’t exist,” he said.

No solutions to the overall issues appear to be immediately in the works. Hanes and Kuba agreed that there currently is no strong evidence that people are staying away from Whitaker to avoid higher parking fees.

“We haven’t noticed a drop-off to this point,” Hanes said.

Keim said the authority is sympathetic toward people who get caught on the exit ramp during busy times at the Walnut Street garage, and said people should contact the authority about a refund or a free eight-hour parking pass.

Theatre Harrisburg is considering underwriting parking costs for its own volunteers, who spend many hours at Whitaker setting up productions, running backstage equipment and performing onstage.

Kuba said the community theater’s Broadway-style musicals can feature 40 to 50 performers and another 30 people backstage, none of whom are paid for their efforts. With five rehearsal days and 10 performance nights per show, those people could end up paying $240 each to park in the Walnut Street garage.

“We are exploring several options,” Kuba said. “It’s too much to ask people who are donating their time to invest that kind of money.”

CITY GARAGESIn addition to 1,200 on-street parking meters, the Harrisburg Parking Authority oversees the following parking lots and garages:

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